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Sony HDR-HC5 Mini DV Digital Camcorder

HDR-HC5 Mini DV Digital Camcorder

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Most recent User Reviews for

Sony HDR-HC5 Mini DV Digital Camcorder

  • Reviewed by: htny01k

    07-17-08

    Duration of ownership: 2 Months

    Strengths: Small and compact. Beautiful High Def picture.

    Weaknesses:Poor picture in low light, motor noise.

    Overall Evaluation: This is a great Sony compact high def camcorder. It uses minidv tape which will get you a good 60 min of high def video. It has a 4 meg still camera built-in which uses Sony memory stick. This feature comes in very handy when you want to take still pictures. It's light and has a small form factor. It will give you great HD home video picture without shelling out a lot of $$$. Highly recommend it.

  • Reviewed by: xujacob

    07-13-08

    Duration of ownership: 3 Months

    Strengths: Easy to use, high quality video at day time, 2.7" LCD touch screen

    Weaknesses:Not good video at night, mini DV tape

    Overall Evaluation: Overall, this is a great camcorder. The touch screen is realy nice and easy to use. The HD video quality is definitely recommended. The video is great at daytime but not that good at night. Battery life is OK for about 1 hour. Mini DV is not my best choice but I am OK with it. But the price is good compared to other HD camcorder.

  • Reviewed by: turrmoil

    03-23-08

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Great Sound, Durable, Simple Controls, Great Features, Versatile, Comfortable to Operate, Great Picture QualityI have been videoing wedding for 5 years, and have used all types of video camers. I find this a great camcorder for weddings, the lux reading

    Weaknesses:The manual functions are not very practical. My only wish is that it had external mic input. You can purchase the little microphone that sits in the hot shoe, but you can not connect an XLR converter to it. The built-in mic is just as good, if not better

    Overall Evaluation: Great Sound, Durable, Simple Controls, Great Features, Versatile, Comfortable to Operate, Great Picture Quality I have been videoing wedding for 5 years, and have used all types of video cameras. I find this a great camcorder for weddings, the lux reading is 1.5 which is great. The only thing that I would chance is the shutter speed. It is set from the factory at 30. I manually change it to 60. Another nice thing about this camera is the low light shooting feature. It allows you to shoot in literally pitch black darkness without blinding anyone. This is a great feature for night time video shooting say when going out for a camping night or something. Another benefit of this camera is that if you owned a mini dv before this one, you don't have to buy new media. One might argue that Hard Drive HD camcorders also have this benefit... but to those I will say the following: (1) you discard your tapes that you invested in when you were using your mini dv camera (2) Hard Drive camcorders will continue to be expensive for atleast another 10-12 months (3) The life of a hard disk on camcorders hasn't been prooven... i.e. they have not been long enough on the market to tell us how long the hard drives last (4) In case data corruption occurs on the hard drive or if the hard drive crashes, there's a chance you will loose all your recording, but with mini dv you hedge "some" of that risk by splitting your video across tapes Hence, overall, this is a great value for the money and unless someone can convince me to spend the extra dollars for a Hard Drive based HD camcorder I am very happy with my purchase... you cannot go wrong buying this camera.

  • Reviewed by: mwerum

    11-24-07

    Duration of ownership: 3 Months

    Strengths: HD video, small size, good image quality

    Weaknesses:Poor UI, buttons and ports randomly placed on camera, HD video still looks like camcorder video

    Overall Evaluation: We've had this camera for a couple of months now, primarily in anticipation of our new daughter who came a week ago! We've shot indoors, outdoors, people, nature, we've used HD and SD video formats. Overall, it's a good camera, however Sony has a hard drive based HD camcorder for less money with a MUCH better user interface that I wish I had looked into more. The UI on this is really clunky. I like the touch screen idea, but the graphics and the organization are a nightmare! The other model I saw had smooth buttons and a pleasingly intuitive look and feel. The HD video is impressive, but you won't confuse it with a Spielberg movie or even HDTV programming. It is still obviously from a camcorder -- with grain and odd colors, especially around bright light sources. For most people with widescreen TVs, the SD widescreen setting will do fine. It will fill up your screen without filling up your computer (assuming you do digital editing of your video). One other downside is the random assortment of ports and buttons. I'm still finding hidden port covers here and there. It would be nice if all the buttons were in one place and all the ports were as well. It would also be nice to use the FireWire port for all data in and out of the camera. Any still photos have to be transferred with the USB port, requiring a separate hook-and-unhook routine.

  • Reviewed by: claytaylor

    11-10-07

    Duration of ownership: 5 Days

    Strengths: You just cant beat Sony's Night Shot. I'm also loving the 1080i HD recording.

    Weaknesses:It's hard to find any. I do know in order to improve the night shot I'm going to go and pick up the IR light adapter which will triple the distance for the night shot.

    Overall Evaluation: I love the camera so far. The still pictures as well as the video are truly amazing with the 1080i HD. I'm using it for my two passions - my family and paranormal investigations. For the latter Sony's Night Shot can't be beat. Personally I dont feel that the extra 200-300 dollars for the HC7 is worth it, but to each their own.

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